FARMINGTON — Franklin County’s computer network was briefly disrupted Feb. 6. by a cyberattack, county Administrator Amy Bernard said in a statement.

“We can confirm this incident stemmed from a sophisticated ransomware attack,” Bernard wrote. “However, as a result of the county’s previous investments in backup technology, the county’s IT department was able to restore impacted systems quickly with no permanent data loss and minimal disruption to operations. All functionality was restored in less than 24 hours.”

When county officials first learned of this incident, they immediately contacted their cyber insurance carrier for assistance and were referred to third-party technical specialists to oversee “our response and ensure we followed best practices to re-secure our systems,” she wrote.

“We also notified law enforcement and engaged third-party specialists to conduct a thorough forensic investigation. The forensic investigation recently concluded, and we have already acted on the recommendations we received to minimize the chance of a similar incident occurring in the future,” according to Bernard.

“While we understand how this incident occurred, we are working with internal staff and outside legal counsel to determine what information from the county’s systems may have been subject to unauthorized access because of this incident,” Bernard wrote. “We are working expeditiously to complete this careful analysis, which is a top priority. We will follow up with required notice to potentially impacted individuals as soon as possible. As our analysis is ongoing, we are unable to provide further information at this time.”

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